


I Will Call You Darling

by hybridempress



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fallen Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff and Angst, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Prompt Fic, Protective Crowley, Scar Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19409329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hybridempress/pseuds/hybridempress
Summary: Aziraphale still wasn’t sure if he had actually “fallen” or not. He hadn’t been “cast out” of Heaven so much as he was able to freely walk out. He didn't know what that meant for him. He didn't know who he was. He didn't know what he was supposed to do.





	I Will Call You Darling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jjlizawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjlizawa/gifts).



The days following Crowley and Aziraphale’s “switch” were terrifying, to say the least. Not because anything had happened since then, but because of the uncertainty of what _would_ happen. Aziraphale spent every second looking over his shoulder to make sure Gabriel wasn’t there, standing with a smug little smirk because he’d discovered their ruse. He spent every minute wondering if he’d made some kind of terrible mistake, and what the consequences of that mistake might be.

Crowley, on the other hand, was feeling freer than he had ever felt in his life. The way he saw it, there was nothing any Angel or Demon could do to control him ever again. Neither Heaven nor Hell would ever want him back, and he was finally able to have the same free will that humans did. He was allowed to decide for himself what was right and wrong. He was allowed to do bad things, but he didn’t _have_ to do them.

But aside from Aziraphale’s conflicting feelings, and Crowley’s minor existential crisis derived from his newfound independence, there had been nothing out of the ordinary for these two in the seven days since Aziraphale and Crowley walked out.

Which is why neither of them could have foreseen such a typical side effect.

Aziraphale still wasn’t sure if he had actually “fallen” or not. He hadn’t been “cast out” of Heaven so much as Crowley—disguised as him—had been able to freely walk out of Heaven while the other Archangels looked on, utterly flabbergasted. Meanwhile, Aziraphale had done his absolute best to _saunter_ straight out of Hell, leaving every other Demon too terrified to ever even _look_ at Crowley again. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what that meant for either of them. He didn’t know what happened to Godlike beings that weren’t wanted by either side. As far as he knew, he and Crowley were the only ones this had ever happened to.

Aziraphale’s answer came to him at the worst time, and in the worst way. It rained on the seventh day, and Aziraphale was alone in his bookshop just after closing when he found out that he had indeed fallen from Grace. And of course, fallen Angels don’t get to keep their pristine white wings.

The feeling was so sudden that Aziraphale feared he was dying. His wings, which were normally hidden, sprouted from his back unprompted and began burning by Hellfire. Aziraphale could only watch out of the corner of his eye, and even then, his vision was blurred from the pain-induced tears flooding his eyes. But as quickly as the fire started, it seemed to want to stop.

Hell didn’t want Aziraphale. It didn’t want to be in charge of punishing him, either. Or claiming him, for that matter. Blackened wings were the sign of a Demon. Hell didn’t want to be responsible for this one. Heaven obviously didn’t want him, either. He couldn’t be allowed to keep his white wings. The fire couldn’t just… _stop._ It was unprecedented. It couldn’t be allowed. 

The end result was what felt like the actual Armageddon happening on Aziraphale’s back as Heaven and Hell fought over who got to “keep” this wretched, traitorous, embarrassment of an abomination that was neither Angel nor Demon. What they left behind was a mess of half-charred wings which were brown and singed instead of black and burning. And Aziraphale, half-passed out in a mess of knocked over books, was more devastated and humiliated than he ever imagined it was possible to be. 

It was several hours before Crowley came back to the bookshop, where he had been staying with Aziraphale ever since they’d walked out together. It was still pouring outside. Crowley was soaking wet. There wasn’t a single light on inside the shop. Crowley could only see by the light of the streetlamp outside.

“Angel?” Crowley called as he stepped into the shop, putting his spare key back into his pocket. When he didn’t immediately see Aziraphale and saw that there wasn’t even a candle lit in the shop, he knew that something was wrong.

“Angel?” he called again, a little more desperately this time. He swung the door closed but didn’t bother locking it before rushing towards the stairs that led to the apartment he and Aziraphale lived in. There were no lights on in the stairwell and no lights behind the door, either. 

A gust of fear swept through Crowley as he quickly pushed the door open. A thousand images of everything that could have happened to Aziraphale while he was gone plagued his mind. He’d never forgive himself if they’d taken Aziraphale again. He would single handedly burn Heaven and Hell to the ground and then burn himself down with them. 

“Aziraphale!” he shouted. On the surface, he sounded angry, but he could not hide the quaver in his voice.

“I-I’m here,” answered Aziraphale’s voice from somewhere very far back in the apartment.

A wave of relieve crashed through Crowley so hard that he nearly fell to his knees. Aziraphale was still here, still _alive_. But something was still off. Crowley could feel it, and he would get to the bottom of it.

He switched on the lights for the living area and didn’t see Aziraphale in the living room or the kitchen. He figured the Angel must be in the bedroom, then. Crowley would feel like an idiot if Aziraphale had simply decided to go to bed early, but he couldn’t think of any reason why that would be the case. Angels didn’t really _need_ sleep, and Aziraphale always waited up for Crowley before he retired for the night. Why would tonight be any different?

“Angel…?” Crowley called again, floorboards creaking as he walked towards the bedroom.

“No—please don’t open the door, Crowley!!” Aziraphale said frantically, just as Crowley had put his hand on the doorknob.

“What? Why not?” Crowley asked, narrowing his eyes at the door as if trying to see through it to get to Aziraphale.

“I don’t… I’d rather you not see me like this right now…!” Crowley could hear a crack in his voice.

“See you like what?” Crowley demanded. “Aziraphale, what happened?”

“Nothing! It’s nothing, I’d just… I’m trying… I’d rather be alone right now, that’s all!”

Crowley didn’t believe that in the slightest. “I’m coming in, Angel.”

Everything after that happened so quickly that Crowley barely had time to process it. No sooner had he opened the door than he heard Aziraphale shout “No!” perfectly in sync with a crack of thunder outside. Lightning briefly lit up the room from the window while the light from the living area seeped in from the door. In that moment, Crowley could see Aziraphale curled up on the floor, red-faced and teary-eyed, with burned brown wings sprouting from his back. Crowley hissed in anger, which only caused Aziraphale to feel more upset.

“I told you not to—”

“Where are they!? What did they do to you!?” Crowley yelled. He seemed to be growing as he stepped further into the room. Aziraphale wondered if he wouldn’t just turn into some kind of Eldritch horror right then and there.

“I—I—I—” Aziraphale was in such shock and distress that he couldn’t get any words out. Crowley fortunately had enough sense to realize that his behavior wasn’t exactly helping matters and decided to calm down, if only to give Aziraphale some comfort. No longer being able to swear to God or Satan, he wasn’t sure who exactly he was supposed to swear to, but he swore to _something_ that he would destroy whoever had hurt Aziraphale like this.

In the meantime, however, he would sit quietly next to Aziraphale on the floor and stroke his shoulder gently. “Aziraphale, what happened?” he asked.

Aziraphale took a deep breath before trying to explain. “N-nobody came here or anything, nobody _did_ this to me, I just… Crowley, I-I think I… Fell…”

Crowley furrowed his brow, glancing at Aziraphale’s wings. “You can’t have fallen,” he said. “Your wings would be black. That’s the punishment all Angels receive when they fall.”

“But that’s just it,” Aziraphale sniffled, “nobody from down there _wants_ me, Crowley. H-Heaven doesn’t want me but the Demons don’t either, and I—… I don’t know who I am, Crowley! And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”

Crowley knew there was nothing he could do right now other than pull Aziraphale into his arms and let him cry. Crowley didn’t know what to do, either. He may still have his black wings, but he knew he wasn’t a Demon anymore. He didn’t know what to call himself. He didn’t know what to call Aziraphale. And he didn’t know how to make this better.

“I can’t… I can’t stop thinking that I’ve—that I’ve made a mistake—” Aziraphale choked out into Crowley’s shoulder. “I got you kicked out of your place and I—I fucked up so much that not even Hell itself wants to take me in, and all this time I thought I was doing the right thing by trying to protect everyone, but that wasn’t part of the great _plan_ and what if I’ve—… What if I’ve just made everything worse?”

“Hey, hey,” Crowley soothed, trying to gather together all of the words that were swimming around in his brain. Trying to find _anything_ that he could pull out to convince Aziraphale that he would be okay.

“Hey, listen,” he began, “just… Fuck God’s _plan_ or whatever, okay? He put you on this Earth six thousand years ago so that you could _protect_ it. So that you could watch over these people and guide them, and teach them how to use their free will for good. War is wrong, murder is wrong, violence is wrong, greed is wrong, that’s all you’ve ever been taught! Why is it different when _He_ wants to go to war?”

Even after everything that he’d been through, Aziraphale’s gut reaction was still to defend The Almighty. It was still to have faith. It was still to believe in that stupid, ridiculous, horrible _ineffable plan._

“I… I… I mean—He _created_ all of this. You, and me, and this Earth, and everything! He’s the _Heavenly Father,_ I-I don’t understand why He wouldn’t do what was best for His children.”

“I think you should know that many fathers don’t do what is best for their children, Aziraphale,” Crowley said solemnly. “The fact of the matter is that He created everything in His own image. The bad parts of humanity don’t _come_ from Hell, Demons just amplify those traits.”

Aziraphale had known these things for a while now. He’d known that everything Crowley was saying to him right now was true. But he wanted so badly to be able to keep denying it. For thousands of years, he had been taught that his God was just and righteous, and that the ultimate goal was to save humanity from Satan’s power. He didn’t know how to live with himself when everything about his life had been stripped away.

“He put you on this Earth and told you to protect it. But He was playing a trick, and you fell for that trick. It isn’t your fault. You did what you were _told_ to do, Aziraphale. You _saved_ humanity. And that’s why Hell doesn’t want you either! You’re a _good person,_ Angel. You’re just having to come to the rude awakening that all of us have had to come to at some point. There really isn’t that much of a difference between Heaven and Hell. One side just tells people it’s righteous, and most of us believe it.”

Aziraphale took a shaky breath, then went silent. He didn’t have any more tears to cry, nor any words to say. In all honesty, he wished he could just disappear for at least a little while and not have to exist in such mental agony. Maybe Alpha Centauri wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

Crowley was glad that Aziraphale had stopped crying, at least, but his sadness was still radiating off of him to the point where it was almost palpable. Crowley wished there was more he could say to put Aziraphale at ease. But what was there to say to someone whose life was falling apart at the seams without any way to put it back to normal again?

Crowley wasn’t sure what had motivated him to do what he did next. Maybe it was the fact that he was desperate and couldn’t think of any other ideas. Maybe it was because humans seemed to find this gesture so comforting. Maybe it was because Crowley would give his life up if it made Aziraphale happy, but knew that the poor bastard could never live without him.

Crowley shifted himself behind Aziraphale and began to trace his fingers down the spine of one of Aziraphale’s wings. Aziraphale jolted at the touch, but didn’t make any move to stop it. When Crowley finally got to the base of the wing, he pulled the ripped fabric of Aziraphale’s shirt back and placed a gentle kiss on the raised skin where the wing sprouted from. 

Crowley could hear Aziraphale gasp, so he started to pull away, but Aziraphale soon leaned into him. Everything was still terrifying, but for the first time in what felt like centuries, Aziraphale finally felt like he belonged somewhere again. He knew where his new place was. It was right here in this bookshop apartment; right here in Crowley’s arms. 

“Neither of us are Angels or Demons anymore, darling,” Crowley murmured against Aziraphale’s skin. “I am just Crowley, and you are just Aziraphale. And whatever else we are, we will be it together.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd told me when I was a 7 year old Christian that I would grow up to become a religiously constipated lesbian who writes Bible fanfiction, I would have probably just gone back to watching Veggie Tales.
> 
> Anyways, my girlfriend gave me a prompt from a list of "kisses" which was "A Kiss on a place of insecurity." I started thinking about how after the end of the show, Aziraphale would eventually be considered by the other angels as "fallen" and his black wings would be a painful reminder to himself of how much he had supposedly fucked up. But then I got to thinking that he wouldn't really be a demon either, so, what punishment would be given to him? I briefly considered writing his wings being torn off/burned off completely, but I decided in the end I wanted him to be able to keep his wings. They'd just be a color that no wings had ever been before.
> 
> Of course writing Aziraphale's "fall" means we have to get way too deep into his relationship with religion--and therefore my own--and we have to come to the realization at some point that Aziraphale's thought process heavily mirrors that of an abuse victim, which I also am. So this fic hits close to home for me in a lot of ways that I really wasn't expecting it to when I wrote it. Luckily for me, as much as my own journey in life makes me able to see myself in Aziraphale, I can also see my girlfriend in Crowley. As Aziraphale and Crowley will always have each other, I know that my girlfriend and I will always have each other, and that makes these things just a little bit easier.
> 
> That got kind of deep. Sorry ;; Anyways, hope you guys enjoy this one. I'm really excited to be back in the fic writing community again. 
> 
> PS: The title is very vaguely based off of a few lines from the song "Make You Mine" by Public. It's a very ineffable husbands song if you want to give it a listen <3


End file.
